Pipeline
Leads in, opportunities through the stages, a next step with a date on every deal, and a history that shows how each one really moved.
StatusNewWorking
Leads
A lead is a company and a person who might buy, before anyone has confirmed there is a deal. It carries the source and campaign that produced it, the territory and owner set by the rules or by the matched account’s owner, and the partner that sourced or influenced it. Sales development works it through New and Working, records need, budget and timing, and either disqualifies it with a reason or marks it qualified.
Activities on a lead are logged against the lead alone until it converts; nobody has to invent an account to log a call. A qualified lead appears in the account executive’s acceptance queue. On acceptance the system matches or creates the account and the contact, records both on the lead, moves the lead’s activities onto them, and opens an opportunity at the first stage when the rep confirms there is a deal. A rejected lead goes back to sales development as recycled with the reason.
Approval conditions
A rejected lead returns to Sales Development Rep (Status: Qualified → Recycled) with AcceptanceNotes.
Account Executive acceptance moves the lead Status: Qualified → Accepted.
Qualified
- LDS-59716 ACC-14338 4 d
- LDS-97753 ACC-38672 9 d
- LDS-57002 ACC-54860 13 d
- LDS-33512 ACC-59938 11 d
- LDS-38777 ACC-61190 2 d
LDS-59716
- CompanyName
- Company 970
- ContactName
- Contact 442
- Need
- NDD-695
- Budget
- Confirmed
- Timing
- ThisQuarter
Approval conditions.
Stages and exit criteria
The stage set is configuration. A typical starting set looks like this:
| Stage | Type | Probability | Forecast category | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qualify | Open | Configured | Pipeline | Need confirmed, economic buyer named |
| Discovery | Open | Configured | Pipeline | Champion identified, requirements documented, products added |
| Proposal | Open | Configured | Best case | Quote approved and sent, decision date agreed |
| Negotiate | Open | Configured | Commit | Final quote accepted verbally, procurement and legal engaged |
| Closed Won | Closed won | 100 | Closed | Booking validated by the deal desk |
| Closed Lost | Closed lost | 0 | Omitted | Loss reason and competitor recorded |
Exit criteria are text the rep sees when moving the deal, and some are enforced: a stage flagged as requiring a quote will not accept a deal without an approved one. Probability defaults from the stage and can be overridden with a reason. Recording the outcome moves a deal to the closed stages; the rep does not pick them.
Approval conditions
Deal Desk approves the booking (Status: PendingClose → Won), which moves the deal to the ClosedWon stage, writes the StageHistory row and stamps ValidatedBy and ValidatedDate.
PendingClose
- OPP-68261 ACC-87580 8 d
- OPP-26755 ACC-82366 4 d
- OPP-10704 ACC-78824 11 d
- OPP-37680 ACC-39847 in 11 d
- OPP-87781 ACC-79573 in 2 d
OPP-68261
- OpportunityName
- Opportunity 705
- Account
- ACC-87580
- Owner
- HC
- Amount
- 660
- AnnualValue
- 920
Booking waits for the deal desk.
The opportunity record
Beyond stage and probability, the record carries the account, owner and territory, the type, the close date and the currency. It carries three values: the annual value of the recurring lines, the total value for the full term, and the amount that is forecast, which is one or the other by the basis of the owner’s quota. It also carries the primary contact, source, campaign, partner, competitor and last activity date, with the buying committee and products as child lists.
YouStatusOpenPendingClose
Next step and date
Every open deal must have a next step and a date for it. When the date passes without the deal being updated, the deal appears in Stale Deals for the manager, the owner is alerted and a task is created. A deal whose next step date has passed is not at negotiate whatever its stage says, and this rule is what surfaces it.
Openoverdue
| Opportunity Number | Account | Owner | Stage | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OPP-42816 | ACC-35498 | BP | PS-2777 | 400 |
| OPP-98871 | ACC-99423 | TK | PS-4397 | 20 |
| OPP-24625 | ACC-12828 | CM | PS-2214 | 640 |
| OPP-22125 | ACC-66328 | RF | PS-5995 | 30 |
| OPP-42975 | ACC-45563 | PJ | PS-7949 | 200 |
| OPP-69824 | ACC-59598 | UP | PS-9249 | 770 |
Stage history and the weekly snapshot
Each stage move writes a history row: from stage, to stage, who moved it, when, and the days spent in the previous stage, with the amount and close date at that moment. The system writes the rows and nobody edits them. From them, Sales Velocity calculates how long deals spend at each stage by size band.
A close date pushed without a stage move is caught by the weekly forecast, which stores a line per open deal with its stage, category, amount and close date that week. Pipeline by Stage compares this week’s lines with last week’s and shows which deals slipped and by how much.
Approval conditions
With Sales Manager negotiation approval recorded, they submit the deal for bookings validation (Status: Open → PendingClose).
Open
| Owner | Opportunity Name | Account | Stage | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LV | Opportunity 715 | ACC-66564 | PS-5338 | 340 |
| KY | Opportunity 462 | ACC-18461 | PS-2598 | 460 |
| BN | Opportunity 584 | ACC-49712 | PS-6274 | 690 |
| FP | Opportunity 114 | ACC-46364 | PS-1897 | 910 |
| WX | Opportunity 613 | ACC-35644 | PS-6289 | 300 |
| UZ | Opportunity 380 | ACC-74461 | PS-9757 | 680 |
Closing a deal
When the customer has accepted the quote, the rep marks the deal pending close, and the deal desk checks it before it counts. Sales Manager first approves negotiation on the current primary quote. The accepted version must retain AcceptedDate and AcceptanceDocument; its AnnualValue and tax-exclusive NetTotal must agree with the opportunity. Deal Desk confirms the close date from the acceptance evidence. Confirming the booking sets the deal to won, moves it to the closed-won stage and creates the contract; a deal that does not check out goes back to the rep with a comment. Lost requires a loss reason and, where known, the competitor; abandoned is for the deal the customer stopped without choosing anyone. Both move the deal to the closed-lost stage.
OpenForecastCategoryPipelineBestCaseCommit
| Opportunity Name | Account | Stage | Amount | Probability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opportunity 582 | ACC-81728 | PS-3522 | 740 | 80 |
| Opportunity 818 | ACC-82787 | PS-9194 | 520 | 10 |
| Opportunity 690 | ACC-74366 | PS-9297 | 180 | 10 |
| Opportunity 761 | ACC-15193 | PS-9090 | 380 | 25 |
| Opportunity 332 | ACC-40978 | PS-9765 | 620 | 80 |
| Opportunity 695 | ACC-88864 | PS-4032 | 380 | 90 |
Modules
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Accounts
The company record everything else hangs off: hierarchy, sites, ownership by territory, the account team and the yearly plan for the accounts that matter most.
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Contacts
The people at each account: who they are, who they report to, the part they play in a purchase, and whether you may contact them.
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Pipeline
Leads in, opportunities through the stages, a next step with a date on every deal, and a history that shows how each one really moved.
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Quotes
Priced proposals built from a price book, versioned as the deal moves, and approved by the right person whenever a rep goes past their authority.
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Activities
Every call, meeting, email, demo, task and note, logged against the account and the deal, synced from mail and calendar, and rolled up into the fields managers sort on.
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Renewals
The contract a won deal becomes, the notice deadline and lead time on it, the renewal opportunity the system opens in time, and the expansion sold on top.
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Forecast
Forecast categories on every deal, a quota per rep per period, a weekly submission with commit and best case, and a manager review that is kept alongside it.
Reports
All reportsPipeline by Stage
Open amount and deal count at each stage, weighted and unweighted, by owner and territory in the reporting currency, with the movement since last week and the deals whose close date slipped between the two weekly snapshots.
Pipeline Created
New opportunities and amount added per week by owner, source, campaign, partner and type.
Win and Loss Analysis
Deals won and lost in a period by loss reason, competitor, source, campaign, deal size band and industry, including lost renewals by churn reason.
Sales Velocity
Days spent in each stage and total cycle length by deal size band and type, from stage history.
Lead Conversion Funnel
Leads by source, channel and campaign through working, qualified, accepted and converted, with time to first touch and time to convert.
Roles and permissions
Works inbound and outbound leads to qualification and hands them to an account executive.
Owns the accounts, contacts, opportunities and quotes in their territory and submits the weekly forecast.
Runs a team of reps: approves negotiation and discounts within manager authority, approves the team's realignment moves, reviews forecasts and sets quotas.
Guards price, terms and bookings: approves quotes below floor price or outside standard terms, validates closed-won deals against the accepted quote, and maintains the price books and thresholds.
Owns customers after the win: contracts, renewal risk, renewal and expansion deals.
Owns territories, stages, quotas, sources, campaigns, rates and data hygiene, without a book of business.
Reads the forecast, the pipeline and the renewal book without editing any of it.
Related processes
Lead to deal
From a lead arriving to a signed contract handed to customer success: routing, qualification, acceptance, proposal, negotiation, the bookings check and the handover, with the gates where a person decides.
6 stages · 3 approvals
Quote approval
How a priced proposal gets from a rep's draft to the customer's inbox: the rules that decide who must approve, the steps in sequence, and what happens on rejection, revision and expiry.
6 stages · 1 approval
Forecast cycle
The weekly rhythm: reps categorise every open deal and submit, managers review and adjust on the record, and the period locks so the forecast can be checked against what closed.
6 stages · 2 approvals